Tag Archives: Russ Choma

Lists are easy, as any writer left behind on a skeletal holiday staff will tell you. The “Best of [year]” list in particular isn’t art, it’s #content — but done with care, it can be a revealing reminder of the highlights of the previous year. To that end, here’s OpenSecrets Blog’s list of our best…

Next month the House will consider a bill to overhaul how the federal government regulates toxic chemicals. That in itself is a milestone: Despite bipartisan support for the idea, the process has been long and tortured, complicated by millions in lobbying and campaign donations. And the fight may be far from over. For more on…

This story was cross-posted with the Guardian. A new loophole stuck into a budget bill last year allows donors to gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to political parties. However, only the Republican party is benefiting from it. A provision quietly inserted into the combination continuing resolution/omnibus spending bill – or Cromnibus – last year…

Several lawmakers caught up in an investigation of their participation in a lavish overseas trip introduced legislation that would benefit the alleged host of their spring 2013 junket – the state-owned Azerbaijani oil company. Additionally, these lawmakers — and others on the trip — have received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from a…

This story was cross-posted with the Guardian’s live blog of the filibuster. Based on Rand Paul’s last filibuster, the presidential candidate’s fundraising is likely to get a big boost from his ongoing speech about NSA surveillance on the Senate floor on Wednesday. In the aftermath of Paul’s previous filibuster in 2013, when he held up a vote…

One lesson of the 2014 election cycle was that more money came from fewer people. And a look at the political One Percent of the One Percent of Americans — the top 31,000 or so donors, roughly equal to one percent of one percent of the U.S. population — over the last three elections bears that…

When retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson announced his bid for the GOP nomination earlier this week, everything about it was unconventional — including the gospel choir crooning an Eminem song and Carson’s wife playing the violin. But breaking the mold is apparently paying off: Carson’s presidential exploratory committee raised $2.1 million over just 29 days in…

Mike Huckabee’s newly-announced run for the White House clearly anticipates that he’ll be able to repeat, and build on, his success in the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, when he pulled off a surprising victory in the Iowa caucus and several other states. Huckabee later parlayed his folksy charm into a lucrative television pundit career. But…

Nobody will be asking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) how he made his money nor how beholden he is to his corporate donors: He’s short on both commodities. That’s not to say Sanders is a political naif or unfamiliar with the world of campaign fundraising. But his money profile isn’t much like most others in the crowded presidential…

In the 2014 elections, 31,976 donors — equal to roughly one percent of one percent of the total population of the United States — accounted for an astounding $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level. Those big givers — what we have termed the Political One Percent of the One Percent…

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